The Pentagon — and specifically Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth — plans to rename the USNS Harvey Milk, which is named after the late gay rights leader. He is also reviewing the names of a class of ships that are currently named after Black and Hispanic civil rights leaders and prominent women.
In addition to being a gay rights leader, Milk was also a Navy veteran and San Francisco politician who was assassinated in 1978.
The Navy referred all comments to the office of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, which provided only a brief statement.
“Secretary Hegseth is committed to ensuring that the names attached to all DOD installations and assets are reflective of the Commander-in-Chief’s priorities, our nation’s history, and the warrior ethos. Any potential renaming will be announced after internal reviews are complete.”
A President who dodged the draft with a bone spur diagnosis from his father’s rental tenant and a Defense Secretary who has mishandled classified communication repeatedly and placed American pilots in danger has decided that a Navy veteran, civil rights leader, and politician who was assassinated in his San Fransisco office does not represent a “warrior ethos.”
It’s incredible how the smallest, most insecure of men somehow believe that they understand the “warrior ethos.”
Other ships under review include:
- USNS Thurgood Marshall, named after the first African American to serve on the Supreme Court
- USNS Ruth Bader Ginsburg, named after the late Supreme Court Justice
- USNS Harriet Tubman, named for the woman who helped enslaved people escape to freedom in the 19th century
- USNS Dolores Huerta and USNS Cesar Chavez, both Hispanic labor leaders
- USNS Lucy Stone, a 19th-century suffragette
- USNS Medgar Evers, the assassinated 1960s civil rights leader
It’s racism and sexism on full and proud display by small, sad men who are easily frightened by the elevation and celebration of women, people of color, and members of the LGBTQ community.
It’s also just stupid and petty and childish. Our government is being run by playground bullies with no decency, competence, or decorum.
History remembers men like George Wallace, Bull Connor, Lester Maddox, and Ross Barnett as ignorant racists from the Civil Rights movement — men whose names will forever live in infamy for their vile, ignorant views.
I suspect that somewhere in the not-so-far future, names like Trump and Hegseth will be added to that list of cowards, racists, and villains.
Harvey Milk, even if his name is removed from USNS Harvey Milk by the idiot Pete Hegseth, will always be remembered as a Civil Rights warrior who served his country and the people of San Francisco with distinction.
